The Birthday Past
by the mystery tramp
Summary: Lily had just turned seven years old when something strange and wonderful happened—the magical sort of something that nobody ever could expect... Written for the Sink into Your Eyes "Twin Travel" challenge. Post-Deathly Hallows, alternate universe.
1. Chapter 1

The Birthday Past_  
a bedtime story_  
by the mystery tramp

I

Once upon a time, there was a _beautiful_ little girl named Lily. This girl, this Lily—she had simply the most _breathtaking_ eyes of any little girl in the world—like perfect little green apples, more delicious-looking than any you've ever seen. Lily had just turned seven years old—practically grown up, don't you know—when something _strange_ and _wonder_ful happened to her that she had never expected in all her life—the _magical_ sort of something that nobody _ever_ could expect... because it was just so unexpected.

Calm down, my girl! You don't even know what it is yet!

Well, as I was saying, on the day that Lily turned seven years old—that most magical age—something strange and wonderful and _most _unexpected came to pass.

Lily woke up on the morning of her birthday—a Sunday—in a bed that was not her own. It took her a moment or so to remember where she was, but finally, she knew—she was at her grandparents' house, where she and her brothers and her parents were spending the night, so that they could celebrate her birthday with the whole family in the morning.

Lily was very, very excited for her birthday, as any girl would be. She was excited for the birthday presents, and the birthday games—but most of all she was excited for her grandmother's birthday cake, because of course it was the most delicious cake in the whole wide—all right, all right, I'll get on with it. Whatever you like.

Lily had always longed for something wondrous to happen to her—something like the stories she'd heard about her mum and dad, the stories of all the magical adventures they'd had. She wished very much that something like that would happen to _her_—or that she could have been there to have an adventure with her parents when they were young. Of course, that was impossible... but that did not stop Lily from wishing it could be so.

When Lily had thrown on her dressing gown, and slipped into her comfiest slippers, she dashed down what felt like a thousand flights of stairs to reach her grandparents' living room. When she arrived, the room was already full of people, and when they spotted her coming down the stairs, they shouted—what do you think they shouted, hmm?

That's right! They shouted

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

at the top of their voices.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!"

And they were all smiling and laughing and standing around a great big pile of presents in the middle of the floor, and Lily grinned a big, happy grin and started in on the pile. Now, I'm not going to tell you what all of the presents were that she got—don't _please Grandma! _me, missy, you're just going to have to wait for tomorrow for that—but I will tell you about _one _present. One most special, most _unusual _present. The last present in the pile.

Nobody knew where it had come from—it didn't have a tag on it, nobody shouted "This one's from me!" or anything like that. It was just a simple box, an inch or so taller than it was wide, but it was wrapped up in the most beautiful paper Lily had ever seen. On the paper there were a thousand shining, twinkling hourglasses, angled in all directions, with sand gracefully pouring through each one. Lily would have been happy just to stare at the paper for hours—but her brother, James, would have none of that:

"Well, open it!" he shouted.

Lily turned her nose up at James, and purposefully turned round so that he wouldn't be able to see as she opened the box. She peeled the paper off carefully, bit by bit, so as not to tear it, and folded it as she—

No I will _not _hurry up, and if you keep asking I'll draw this out even longer!

—where was I? Oh yes, Lily _carefully_ unwrapped the box, and _slowly_ set the paper to the side, and _finally_—making sure that James could not see—she took a deep breath, and opened the lid.

The box was filled with tissue paper, bunched up and crinkled and clearly concealing something beneath it. On top of the tissue, however, there was a single piece of parchment.

Lily picked it up, and stared at it for a few moments. She could not yet read very well, you see, and she wondered miserably why someone would have written her a note. Wouldn't they have known she was only a little girl?

"What does this say?" she asked, holding the note, and James practically leapt forward to snatch it out of her hand.

"_I'll _read it," he said, and he stared at the paper himself for a few moments, a curious expression on his face.

"What does that mean?" he wondered aloud.

"What does it say?" asked Lily.

"It says, _This is not a birthday present. This is a birthday past._"

There were murmurings in the circle of their family, each one commenting to one another about this strange note. Finally, James handed the note back to his sister, and asked, "Well, there's got to be something else in the box, hasn't there?"

He picked up the box, and began to rummage through the tissue paper.

"JAMES!" shouted Lily. "That's mine!" And she grabbed hold of the edge of the box and tried to pull it away from him. It was a rather flimsy sort of box, however, and after a moment's struggle, the two of them had torn the box in two. Tissue paper flew in a thousand directions, and an object fell on the floor between James and Lily with a loud _thunk_.

_What was it?_ you ask?—I'm going to _tell _you what it was, silly, if you'd stop interr_up_ting me!

It was a silver pocket watch, with a long, silver chain. Lily picked it up, and it was heavier than it looked. She opened it, and frowned.

"It's not ticking," she said.

"Give me that," said James, and he snatched it out of her hands, like he'd snatched the box. "You have to _wind it._"

The grown-ups began to scold him, and Lily shouted "Give it back!" and grabbed hold of the chain.

James began to wind the little dial on the side—he wound it, and wound it, and wound it, until finally he felt satisfied. When he'd finished, an eternity seemed to pass in a moment, and then—a single _tick_—and all of a sudden, poor little Lily and her big brother James... disappeared!

I think that's enough for tonight, don't you?


	2. Chapter 2

The Birthday Past  
_a bedtime story  
_by the mystery tramp

II

I had a feeling you'd still be awake.

Come on, follow me. You don't want to wake up the whole house, do you? This is just between you and me. Don't tell your mum and dad that Grandma's getting you up to listen to stories in the middle of the night, all right? I'm sure they'd think that was a most imprudent thing to do, but I am of the opinion that a girl's birthday should be a very special day—and what better way to make it especially special...? Come on, get on your dressing gown and slippers—we'll go someplace where nobody can hear us.

Oh, you look just like your mum when you smile like that... now, where was I? Where did we leave off?

Oh yes, of course. James had just wound up Lily's _mysterious_ new pocket-watch, and the two of them had _disappeared! _Now, what do you think happened to them?

Fine, fine, I'll just tell you, then. While to everybody else in the room it looked like Lily and James had disappeared without a trace, to _them_ it merely seemed as though the world around them had been replaced with thick, dark smoke—like they were being roasted on an open fire, but Lily could feel her feet, and they weren't burnt, and it did not feel very hot, so she knew _that_ was not what was going on—but what _was _going on?

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the smoke subsided and Lily found herself just where she had been before—in her grandparents' living room, with James at her side, and the long, silver chain of the pocket-watch clasped tightly in her hands. The circle of her family, however, was nowhere to be found.

"Where'd everybody go?" asked James.

"How should I know? _You're _the one that made them disappear!" She yanked upon the chain, pulling the watch itself roughly out of James's hands. She inspected it carefully, as though expecting him to have broken it. It was ticking away excitedly.

"Oh my," said a voice, and Lily's gaze jumped up from the watch in her hands to see a rather peculiar sight: her very own grandmother was now standing in the doorway, looking quite a bit _younger—_and quite a dish she was, if I do say so myself!

"Grandma!" shouted James, apparently blind to the remarkable difference in their grandmother's appearance. "Where did everybody else go?"

"Grandma?" said their grandmother, staring at the two of them as though they were the strangest sight in the whole world.

"Molly?" called a voice from the other room. "What is it?"

"Nothing, nothing, not a thing," said their grandmother, quite breathless. And without another word, she fell to the floor with a _thunk_.

"Grandma!" exclaimed the two children, dashing over to her. There was the sound of the scuffling of chairs, and in a moment, a large crowd had gathered in the doorway around Lily's grandmother's fallen form.

The room was silent for a minute, as the two young children poked and prodded their prostrate grandmother, and the crowd of teenagers (and one adult) stared down wordlessly at the scene.

"Well, I reckon I'll just come out and say it," said one of the teenagers, who Lily might have identified as a very young-looking version of her uncle George, if she had been looking at him, "...who the bloody hell are the kids?"

"That is a very good question," said the one remaining conscious adult in the room, who sounded just like Lily's grandfather.

"And is it just me," said another of the teenagers, who looked just like George, "or do they bear the _teensiest _resemblance to our very own Harry and Ginny?"

Lily finally looked up from her grandmother, to eye the crowd of almost-family apprehensively.

"Well kids do tend to look like their parents, don't they?" said James, as if he thought they were all the stupidest people in the world. "That's how it works, generally?"

The crowd blinked one big, collective blink.

"Their what?" asked a very small voice from the back of the crowd, and a very strangled voice from the front of the crowd, at just the same moment.

"Mum?" said James, lifting his head from his grandmother. "Dad? That was so weird, why did you all disappear like—"

He stared for a long moment at his father, as his mother made her way to the front of the group of Weasleys. Finally, James, he said, "You look all... different."

And indeed they did. For like everyone else in this strange new living room, Lily and James's parents looked remarkably young—it was particularly notable for her, for Ginny, as she still looked—almost—like a child.

Now, what do _you_ think is going on, my dear?

That's right, exactly! Dear little Lily, and her big brother James, the pocket-watch had taken them _backward in time!_

Now, like I said before, our heroine, our Lily, she had always dreamt of having a magical, magnificent adventure like her parents—ever since she was a little girl, since she had first heard the stories of dragons and giant spiders, of enormous serpents and evil wizards and trolls. And now, Lily found herself plopped right into the middle of her very own adventure! She could hardly believe it. This was certainly the most _exciting _birthday she had ever—

And just at that moment, a great big dragon swept in through the window and set the house on _fire—!_

Oh all right, all right. There wasn't really any dragon. But it certainly would have been more exciting than what really happened, because for all the adventurousness in the air and in Lily's heart, the next several minutes consisted mostly of a great, heavy silence, as no one could think of a single word to say.

Finally, Lily's uncle Ron offered up a feeble attempt:

"Maybe they're Death Eaters?"

"Oh, shush, Ron," said Hermione.

Nobody spoke, after that, for another very long moment.

Finally, James: "Lily," he whispered, "I reckon we've gone back in time."

Lily sighed.

"How is this possible?" said Harry. "Isn't this sort of... against the rules of everything?"

"Yeah," said Ginny, "what the bloody—I mean," and here she stopped herself, as though realizing the presence of the young ears in the room, "what on earth is going on?"

Nobody spoke, because no one knew. Then:

"What is that in your hands?" asked Hermione.

"This?" asked Lily, holding up the pocket-watch. "This is my birthday present. Well, _one _of my birthday presents—"

"Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

A tiny bit reluctant, Lily handed the watch over—her hands felt sort of heavy without it, like they missed it already, missed this strange object that had turned her world upside down—

"Oh my," said Hermione, examining it in that very Hermione way of hers. "Where did you get this, Gi—I mean—Lily, is it?"

"Yes, Lily," said Lily, somewhat annoyed, "and I _told you_, it was a _birthday present_—"

"No it wasn't," said James, speaking in his more normal, more serious voice. "Don't you remember the note?"

Lily's eyes widened. "Oh yes!"

"Note?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah," said James. "It had a note in the box with it. I read it." He grinned, proud of himself. "It said it _wasn't _a birthday present, it said it was a birthday _past._ Whatever that means—"

"Of course!" said Hermione excitedly. "I was thinking it must be something like that—of course, there's still the question of who gave it to you, but—"

"It must be something like _what_?" asked Ron, more than a little confused.

"A birthday _past_," said Hermione. "I've read about them. They're very rare—not because they're very valuable or anything, but because they're just not very popular—you see, this watch, it allows you to go back in time, for one day only, on your birthday—and _safely_, too, because when the clock strikes midnight, everything goes back to the way it was, you can't change anything for good, you can't mess anything up in space and time—that's why they're not very popular. They only work once a year, and after all, why go back in time if you can't fix the mistakes?"

My girl, are you still awake?

Oh dear, I'm sorry about that, I didn't mean to put you to sleep. I will get onto the good part, yes?

When Hermione had finished, Harry looked at Lily, took a deep breath, and said:

"So you're my daughter?"

There was a moment of hesitation, during which James looked rather indignantly left out—then, Lily nodded.

Harry continued: "And today is your birthday?"

Lily nodded. Harry nodded as well, this time, nodded a few times, as though he was thinking something over—_I_ like to think that maybe, perhaps, that Harry was thinking back on some of his own birthdays, some of the miserable times he had spent with his aunt and uncle when he was small, when he was Lily's age—and then, he smiled.

"Then we're going to make sure you have the best birthday of your life," he said. And then: "Aren't we, Ginny?"

Ginny's eyes widened, somewhat taken off guard. Harry looked at her, and there was something deep and important in his look that she never could have put into words.

"Of course we are," she said, and she smiled as well.

And Lily found herself in a whirlwind, like nothing she had seen before—from that moment, from that tiny little fragment of a memory, that look between her young parents, the day grew into the sort of day you remember for your whole life.

They played Quidditch together—_this_ Harry taught her to fly, taught her to _soar_, without any of the fatherly anxiety for her safety that her _own_ Harry could not quite overcome.

They explored the world around the Burrow—_this_ Ginny showing her all the secrets and hiding places that her _own_ Ginny never even thought about anymore.

It was the greatest day Lily could remember, and as such, it passed with a quickness she had never known. Before she even felt it slipping away, the day was gone entirely, and indeed, this day that Lily would always remember would soon become one that her parents—and everyone else, except for James—would completely forget.

"I don't want to go home," Lily said to her parents, laying sleepy on the couch in the living room with an ache in her heart she could not possibly grasp. "It's so _different_ here... you're different. You're so..."

And as Lily's eyes drifted shut against everything she wanted, she murmured: "...alive."

And that was the end of the day for Lily. The next thing she knew, it was morning, and she was being prodded awake by her grandmother, looking very much her old self again:

"Get up, get up, what are you doing here on the couch?" her grandmother said. "Time to open your presents, don't you know!"

And Lily's eyes widened.

But that was not the end of the day for her parents.

They watched her, as she fell asleep, half-expecting her to disappear as soon as her breathing settled. But it was not yet midnight—it was still Lily's birthday. They had not yet forgotten.

Harry took a deep breath, and looked up at Ginny.

"So what does this all mean, do you think?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Ginny. "Or rather, I think I do, but I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it? We're not going to remember any of this."

"I guess it'll just happen on its own, then," said Harry. "Whatever 'it' is."

"_It..._ is _us_," said Ginny, simply, frankly, and somehow those three little words meant the world to the both of them.

Without even thinking about it, Harry reached out and squeezed Ginny's hand. She smiled, and a moment later, after properly realizing what he'd done mostly unconsciously, he smiled as well.

They sat in silence for a minute, and then:

"I guess we get sort of terrible, don't we?" said Ginny. "Like we're not even alive, she said, didn't she?"

"Yeah," said Harry. He thought a minute, and said, "It makes you wonder, doesn't it? "

"About what?"

"About what we're going to have to go through," he said. "About what it's all going to take." He was sort of staring off into the distance, now, his eyes unfocused.

"Well," said Ginny, after a minute, "we know it all turns out all right, in the end, don't we? We know we're going to make it through, _whatever _it takes."

A pause. Then Harry:

"We know how beautiful she is."

That was the last either of them spoke that night, the last word between them—and the both of them, deep, deep down inside, as the minutes ticked away towards midnight, the both of them hoped, and hoped, that somehow, some little part of them might remember.

And they hoped, they hoped that maybe—_just maybe—_they might not just _survive_, in the end, but make it out alive.

The End


End file.
